Significant Contributions to Public Health - Part II

1. Draw a timeline marking the time each of the 11 blue men presented symptoms. Explain the point of mapping out the incident timeframe (i.e. why would epidemiologists need this information and how would it be used)

At 8:00 AM on Monday morning the first sick man was identified and was taken to the emergency room at 8:30 AM.

The second man was rolled to the emergency room at 10:25 AM.

At 11:05 AM third, fourth and the fifth men were brought in same ambulance.

At 11:20 AM the sixth and the seventh victims were brought

The eighth and the ninth sick men arrived at 11:35 AM.

The tenth sick men was brought at 12:00 noon

At 6:45 PM another victim was brought

The timeline helps to determine the incubation of the disease and the cause of the illness thus its of much more use to the epidemiologist.

2 Describe the key symptoms and incubation period for the illness affecting the eleven blue men.

The signs of illness affecting the eleven blue men were seen after a short period of time because they were getting sick immediately after breakfast which took an incubation period of about thirty minutes or less.

3 Describe each step of an outbreak investigation as it pertains to this particular event, indicating all of the key points in the investigation (include how it started, why epidemiologists got involved, where did the investigation take the epidemiologists, who were interviewed, what/who were the potential culprits identified during the investigation)

The investigation starts when eighty-two old man is taken to the hospital being unconscious and blueness had spread over most of his body. He is the first man to be seen with this symptom which was thought of been carbon monoxide poisoning. After a while, another number of men are brought to the hospital with the same symptoms coming from the same area but they were lacking the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Epidemiologist took a lot of concern because there were rare symptoms and they were unable to trace the origin of the illness. It was discovered that they all ate from the same hotel and the health department get involved trying to know the source by comparing the signs of what they thought might lead to this, they were taking blood samples and asking questions. At last, the epidemiologist went to the café which the sick men had eaten the breakfast to figure out and see what could have led to this within the sick men

1. Identify three questions that Dr. Greenberg and Dr. Pellitteri asked the patients. Explain why three questions were relevant.

Whether they drank any alcohol or drugs? They asked this question because they worded why these men were the only affected rather than there were other peoples ate in the same cafeteria and were not affected. They also asked them that what had the people affected had eaten at the café; this is because they thought the illness origin was food poisoning. What places had they visited before the symptoms seen? This question was asked by Dr.Greenberg and Dr, Pelliteri in order to know where to examine the cause of the outbreak (Imperato, 2014)

1. Identify three questions that the epidemiologists asked the Eclipse Cafeteria employees. Explain why these three questions were relevant.

If the sick men had a usual behavior? This helped them to find that why only eleven out of the one hundred and twenty-five peoples who ate the oatmeal meal got sick.

Who prepared the oatmeal breakfast so that he could help them in their research of determining the toxic ingredients. Show me all of the ingredients used to prepare the oatmeal this morning this helped them to examine the ingredients and know the concentration of the toxic substance in the meal.

1. Identify the final culprit and how it was discovered.

The sick men were alcoholic, hence the mixture of in their blood system and the excessive amount of salt in the oatmeal was the culprit. On that specific day, and the cook had done a mistake and put saltpeter instead of normal salt.

1. Explain why were these specific men more affected than other people who ate in the cafeteria?

Initially, the effects were discovered to origin from excessive salt, but the amount of salt added to the oatmeal failed to convince the doctors to be the source of illness to the eleven men. They continued their investigation and prove that the men had added more salt to their oatmeal. They were not satisfied with their findings arguing that there must be other peoples added more salt to the meal and finally discovered that it was effects of alcohol. They found that there is poor volume of sodium chloride in the blood of alcoholic which affects their appetite on salt intake. Thus resulting in their reactions and the illness.

Reference

Imperato, P. J. (2014). New York City’s innovative epidemiologist: The life and career of Morris Greenberg. Journal of community health, 39(4), 682-687.

Lummus, S. &.-D. (2013). Methylene Blue “Avatar” Brain. Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology, 72(3), 263-265.